MIAMI — The U.S. Agency for International Development is deploying an elite disaster response team to Haiti “as insecurity, gang violence, and the humanitarian situation worsens” throughout the Caribbean nation, a U.S. official told McClatchy and the Miami Herald on Friday.
The Disaster Assistance Response Team, also known as a DART, is “assessing needs and working closely with the U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince, humanitarian partners, and the Haitian people to determine how to deliver assistance to the most vulnerable,” the official said.
Haiti is embroiled in near-anarchy as gangs continue to blockade the country’s largest fuel terminal and choke off critical roadways, compounding a growing cholera outbreak.
DARTs are typically reserved for severe humanitarian crises and disaster responses. They are comprised of the government’s most highly trained disaster response experts, and are intended to expedite the assessment of needs and delivery of aid.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration announced it would impose visa restrictions on individuals who are involved in gang activity, and sent a major U.S. Coast Guard ship to monitor the coast off Haiti’s capital.
The United States also plans to push for a vote on Monday on a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that would establish a mechanism to impose international sanctions on gang leaders.
But with violence and disease worsening throughout the country, Haiti’s government is asking for more, including an international rapid response force that can break the gang blockade of the fuel ports. The U.N. secretary general has called for international intervention to establish a humanitarian corridor. But, so far, no country has expressed interest in sending military forces.
“In addition to mobilizing the DART, the United States continues to monitor the situation in Haiti closely and is working alongside international partners to determine needs and provide additional assistance,” the U.S. official said. “The American people have a proud and generous history of providing help during times of crisis. USAID remains committed to helping the people of Haiti during this difficult time.”
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.N. World Food Program warned Friday that spiking inflation and four weeks of blocked access to fuel, jobs, food and public transport are driving the country into a downward spiral.
“Cité Soleil has seen a worrisome rise” in hunger, the U.N. agency said, with 65 percent of the population of Haiti’s largest slum – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – experiencing the worst of it, with 5% of them in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Increased violence in Cité Soleil, with armed groups vying for control of the area, has meant that residents have lost access to their work, markets and health and nutrition services. Many have been forced to flee or hide in their homes.
Food has remained scarce in rural areas, with several going from crisis to emergency phase.
“Harvest losses due to below average rainfall and the 2021 earthquake that devastated parts of the Grand´Anse, Nippes and Sud departments are among the shocks that worsened conditions,” the agencies said in a statement.
The U.S. and its partners are especially concerned with the growing cholera outbreak. The U.N.’s leading child welfare agency, UNICEF, said that nearly 100,000 children under the age of 5 who are already suffering from severe acute malnutrition are especially vulnerable to cholera.
Since the disease was first reported on Oct. 2, there have been 357 suspected cases, with more than half of these in children under the age of 14.
Children aged ages 1-4 are at the greatest risk. “The crisis in Haiti is increasingly a children’s crisis,” said Bruno Maes, the UNICEF representative in Haiti.
“One in three of those suffering from cholera is under the age of 5. For children who are already weak from a lack of nutritious food, catching cholera, and suffering the effects, including diarrhea and vomiting, is close to a death sentence. They must be identified and treated urgently, and concrete measures must be taken to prevent new cholera cases in the communities.”
Maes noted that thousands of families are grappling with lack of food in Cité Soleil, which has been ravaged by a new round of violence since July, when a gang war left over 470 dead or missing. Added to the threat of armed gangs, which is drastically reducing populations’ access to basic services, is the ongoing gang blockade of fuel.
“Time is against us, as cholera spreads rapidly and there is a risk of the outbreak growing out of control,” Maes said.
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